An asteroid less than a mile in diameter could hold more than $20 trillion in industrial and precious metals

Resources on Earth are limited. Our planet was born with a fixed amount of water, hydrocarbons, nitrogen, and industrial and precious metals.

And we're collecting, processing, and eventually throwing out those resources at an alarming rate: A United Nations report on resource depletion says that between 1980 and 2008 natural resources per capita declined by 20 percent in the United States, 33 percent in South Africa, 25 percent in Brazil, and 17 percent in China.

For now, only protection and better resource management can safeguard the planet. As we burn through Earth's resources, a wealth of physical resources like metals, water, and hydrocarbons are floating around in asteroids, moons, and other planets, ready to be harvested. If human civilization is to continue to grow and expand over the centuries and millennia to come, hunger for resources is likely to drive us to explore and mine what's way, way out there.

And as wild as it may sound, asteroids in particular could be highly profitable. In 1997 scientists speculated that a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of 0.99 miles contains more than $20 trillion worth of industrial and precious metals.....

So, there’s this rock — it’s about a mile across, OK? And it’s zipping past at ... I dunno ... a couple thousand miles an hour or something. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. The thing is, I want you reach out — and grab that bad boy!! You with me? Just — grab it!! And we’ll all be rich!

I’m sure he has. But descendants of some of the families formerly involved in manufacturing on U.S. soil (decades back) sent much of the scrap steel to other countries in order to avoid being shown-up by new, small shops and to generally prevent competition. And yes, such international transportation is very costly.

5
posted on 06/25/2013 7:07:58 PM PDT
by familyop
(We Baby Boomers are croaking in an avalanche of rotten politics smelled around the planet.)

Isn’t the Earth’s atmosphere made up of 78 percent nitrogen? I would bet in the future liberals will be protesting the addition of mass added to the planet and guys like Algore will try to institute a mass trading scheme in the inner planets that would only enrich themselves and deny others ease of self enrichment.

“For now, only protection and better resource management can safeguard the planet. As we burn through Earth’s resources, a wealth of physical resources like metals, water, and hydrocarbons are floating around in asteroids, moons, and other planets, ready to be harvested. If human civilization is to continue to grow and expand over the centuries and millennia to come, hunger for resources is likely to drive us to explore and mine what’s way, way out there.”

I swear I can hear a violin being played while reading this crap...

9
posted on 06/25/2013 7:10:28 PM PDT
by max americana
(fired liberals in our company after the election, & laughed while they cried (true story))

Along with adding more mass to the planet. What do they think will happen if they add more water to the planet? The water levels will rise. The world climate cycle keeps water shifting, as well as transforming it between solid, liquid and gas. The amount of water also stays at more or less a constant amount I’d assume. Adding more would burden the world’s climate, and really change it irreversibly.

This isn’t hard to figure out.

12
posted on 06/25/2013 7:12:51 PM PDT
by wastedyears
(I'm a gamer not because I choose to have no life, but because I choose to have many.)

With that attitude, maybe we should declare that the current manpower on the International Space Station to be the last mission, and when that crew leaves, have them shut off the lights. With that attitude, there’s no more reason to look at the sky and wonder what lies beyond the orbit of our moon. There’s no hope that our descendents will leave Earth in a few billion years when the sun expands to a red giant and turns this planet into a dead rock, if not totally vaporizing it.

20
posted on 06/25/2013 7:16:46 PM PDT
by wastedyears
(I'm a gamer not because I choose to have no life, but because I choose to have many.)

The more precious metals you discover in space, the lower the market value is here on Earth.

Basically true but it depends on the transportation and extraction costs. Some metals like silver, platinum, palladium, etc. are vital for industrial use. Primary silver mines are increasingly depleted and some uses for silver don't allow recycling. No substitute yet exists for some purposes.

A United Nations report on resource depletion says that between 1980 and 2008 natural resources per capita declined by 20 percent in the United States, 33 percent in South Africa, 25 percent in Brazil, and 17 percent in China.

PER CAPITA... where South Africa's population went form 29m to 50m (an increase of 73%), the US went from 227m to 313m (37%), Brazil went from 119m to 193m (62%) and China went from 981m to 1.3b (33%)... thus the resources in EVERY case have actually INCREASED since 1980.

28
posted on 06/25/2013 7:24:59 PM PDT
by Teacher317
(The public is being manipulated to fleece the taxpayer. That is the real industry in Washington.)

everybody familiar with economic history knows about the great tulip speculative bubble of the 1600’s in holland. people bid up the price of tulips to astronomical values. and then prices crashed.

What’s not so well known is the answer to the question...where did all the money to make this speculative boom come from...because...as far as we know this was the first known financial bubble of the modern age—or any age.

The answer to that question is in the spanish silver mines of the new world. There were a couple big ones in Peru and Mexico. Pirates like sir francis drake got only a small percentage of the vast troves of the metal that were shipped to europe from the new world.

Later in this century something similiar will happen with asteroid mining.

The cost and difficulty of space greatly exceeds the cost and difficulty of crossing the Atlantic.

The basic problem is that you never ACTUALLY run out of stuff on Earth - you just start getting ore concentrations that are unprofitable to mine, but that you could get whatever metal you want out of if you wanted to (or out of seawater.)

It’s just always going to be cheaper, if the supply of something gets short, to just go after low-concentration ores on Earth (plus recycling) rather than asteroids.

And we're collecting, processing, and eventually throwing out those resources at an alarming rate...

Apparently the author forgot about conservation of matter. For most materials the problem isn't whether or not we have them on the earth, it is whether the material is concentrated enough in one location to be worth mining. Someday our trash dumps may well be worth mining. Probably long before grabbing an asteroid is economical.

I’m horizontal tapping on an iPad or I’d do some calculations on the amount of energy it would take to drop that down to the Earth at a reasonable descent rate. You drop that thing at full speed and i bet it would make the Hiroshima bomb look like a picnic.

"There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States." -- T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, 1961

Energy:
Energy before atmospheric entry: 2.04 x 1022 Joules = 4.87 x 106 MegaTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth during the last 4 billion years is 1.6 x 107years

Major Global Changes:
The Earth is not strongly disturbed by the impact and loses negligible mass.
The impact does not make a noticeable change in the tilt of Earth’s axis (< 5 hundreths of a degree).
The impact does not shift the Earth’s orbit noticeably.

Crater Dimensions:
What does this mean?

The crater opened in the water has a diameter of 60.2 km ( = 37.4 miles ).

Final Crater Diameter: 59.1 km ( = 36.7 miles )
Final Crater Depth: 1.01 km ( = 0.627 miles )
The crater formed is a complex crater.
The volume of the target melted or vaporized is 180 km3 = 43.1 miles3
Roughly half the melt remains in the crater, where its average thickness is 169 meters ( = 555 feet ).

Thermal Radiation:
What does this mean?

Time for maximum radiation: 1.13 seconds after impact

Your position is inside the fireball.
The fireball appears 256 times larger than the sun
Thermal Exposure: 4.14 x 109 Joules/m2
Duration of Irradiation: 11.8 minutes
Radiant flux (relative to the sun): 5840

Effects of Thermal Radiation:

Clothing ignites

Much of the body suffers third degree burns

Newspaper ignites

Plywood flames

Deciduous trees ignite

Grass ignites

Seismic Effects:
What does this mean?

The major seismic shaking will arrive approximately 9.66 seconds after impact.
Richter Scale Magnitude: 9.1
Mercalli Scale Intensity at a distance of 48.3 km:

And well all have flying cars, too. Just like the ones they promised us 50 years ago.
............
You’re right that 50 years ago, it was thought that the civilization would be much further along than it is today.

However, I buy the argument that the rate of technological change has been accelerating lately. That the technological changes we’ll see in the next—even 20 years will be much like the big technology changes of 1890-1910.

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